Malaysia to abolish death penalty

Malaysia's cabinet has agreed to abolish the death penalty , a senior minister said Thursday, with more than 1,200 people on death row set to win a reprieve following a groundswell of opposition to capital punishment.

A Malaysian court last year ruled the case could proceed against Indonesian national Siti Aisyah and Doan Thi Huong of Vietnam after Kim Jong Nam's murder at Kuala Lumpur Airport.

Australian citizen Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto, who was found guilty of drug smuggling by an appeals court in May, will also win a reprieve.

The 54-year-old grandmother was arrested in December 2014 after she was found in possession of 1.1 kilograms (2.4 pounds) of crystal methamphetamine while passing through Kuala Lumpur on a flight from Shanghai to Melbourne.

There were 993 executions recorded in 2017 in 23 countries, but Amnesty's numbers do not include the "thousands" it says are believed to have been executed in China, which classifies this information as a state secret.

Excluding China, Amnesty says Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan -- in that order -- carried out 84 percent of all executions in 2017.